Flash Panels: Stage & Library

Timeline

Stage & pasteboard (area outside the stage where elements can sit before being drawn into the Flash movie

property inspector for document, includes size of stage (document), frames per second (fps), background color, Actionscript version

Stage to create graphics

Can draw with drawing tools or drag in symbols from library

Size of stage will determine size of movie -- can change size via Modify>movie or in property inspector for document

Stage pasteboard -- place to lay out symbols before they appear on the stage:  View>work area

objects you want to animate have to be changed into symbols and stored in library 

When you are editing the movie, you will see that "Scene #" is displayed above the timeline --

Need to be careful because can mistake movie editing screen with symbol editing screen.

Flash Library

Holds graphics, music, movieclips that have been converted into symbols for a particular movie

Symbols can be animated and reused

Library objects can be organized in directories within library

Common Objects Libraries come with Flash. Add your own movie library to libraries menu by placing a Flash file in the Libraries directory in the Flash folder.

Open library for a movie to reuse the symbols from that movie

Flash can import these (and other) file formats into library for a movie:

• Graphics files:  .bmp,  .gif,  .jpg,  .swf (shockwave movies)
• Freehand best choice for creating vector graphics for importing into Flash
• Sound files in MP3, AIF or WAV format, import, store in movie library
  ~~ best to use 22 kHz 16-bit mono sounds
  ~~ sound file gets its own layer in movie 

Shared Libraries -- Let you set up libraries with symbols that can be shared across a Website -- saves download time

Context Menu for selected frame

• Right-click frame in timeline
• commands for creating, deleting, modifying frames and keyframes
• copying and cutting frames
• creating motion & shape tweens
• copy & paste motion
• convert motion to ActionScript 3.0
• Reverse frames